October 6, 2018

From the Marijuana Harvest Festival on the UW Library Mall today. The video ends abruptly when one of the men on the stage calls out to me, "Ann!" I put the lens cap on the camera.

Actually, the camera continues to run, so I had audio of my reacting to getting run into by a man in an electric wheelchair, who came up behind me, ran into my foot, and kept his motor running with his wheel ramming into my foot as if to say, move your foot, I'm coming through.

Transcription from the audio: "Oh! Oh! Oh! Hey! Hey! Don't run into me. That's a crime. Don't run into people with a motor vehicle. That's wrong! That's wrong! You could be arrested for that! You need to be careful! There are children! There are animals! Don't do that! Don't do that!"

I really cared about impressing him that he could not drive like that on the pavement. He was acting like someone that other people let get away with whatever he wants to do, which I also think is wrong and, frankly, dehumanizing. Either he's capable of driving a motor vehicle or he isn't.

54 comments:

I'm always surprised by the aggressive handling of motorized wheelchairs on the street and at the grocery store. It's a bit off putting to see some grotesquely overweight person barreling down a crowded grocery isle as if they can't get to the chips and candy fast enough. I guess there is a certain entitlement to plow more chow into the pie hole, and that entitlement extended to running over Ann's foot.

"Who cares about this guy jabbering about lettuce and tomato analogies? We want the audio."

It's audio of me expressing alarm and then chiding the man, but the lens cap is on, so, no video. I'm not interested in putting the audio out there, but I do have a record of it, in case any of the many people who heard me think they can quote me, that terrible woman who yelled at a disabled man.

I have experience with people in wheelchairs and I believe they are often treated as if they are mentally disabled because they are physically disabled. I think that's what's offensive, and I believe in treating them like human beings. If the man isn't mentally able to drive that heavy motorized thing, which he's allowed to take on the pavement, then he is dangerous and should not be doing it. I've been annoyed on other occasions by people in motorized wheelchairs on the sidewalk who seem to think pedestrians are supposed to jump out of their way (and even maintain this attitude when they are coming up behind you).

You have to admit that this cause, unlike most of those advanced by sidewalk orators, is concrete and limited, and also achievable. It does not violate physics, biology, human nature or the US constitution, nor does it threaten to advance the extinction of humanity, nor does it impose tyrranny or promise cruelty to some group or other, nor does it propose adding regulatory burdens on the people, nor does it demand money from anyone.

And, full credit to its proponents, they have not set up a system of blackballing and pogroms for their opponents.

At Home Depot 2 weeks ago and two kids I'd guess were 10 and 12 were motoring all around the hardware section in the 2 store scooters they had co-opted. Dad smiling benignly as he sent them on their way so he could continue searching for whatever fasteners he needed. They almost ran me down. I went and told the customer service employee. She couldn't get out from around that desk fast enough, walkie talkie in hand, to track them down.

I worked in the area of vocational services for the developmentally disabled in a large city (Seattle), thus interacted with not only DD folks but disability advocates. I have met a few of these "fuck you" wheelchair-bound types. I kinda get it having been around hundreds of disabled people of various stripes: years of being treated as invisible creates this mentality. Constantly being overlooked as a person, many take to an aggressive approach 24/7. Example: we had a small lunchroom at our agency. This one guy in a wheelchair would wheel in, barely able to fit - knocking people aside with impunity. If you tried to reason with him, you'd get an earful of how hard his life was in comparision to yours (he was quite ugly to boot so it was tough to argue). He would then eat his lunch in such a loud, obnoxious manner the room would clear in disgust - leaving the entire room to himself.

Yes, if weed had been legal in the US in the 1980's, Kavanaugh and Ford would have had much different parties: munchies, watching cartoons and giggling. This entire fiasco would have been prevented if weed was there instead of booze.

"I kinda get it having been around hundreds of disabled people of various stripes: years of being treated as invisible creates this mentality."

As I said in the post and comments, I do blame, more than the man in the wheelchair, the people who (I imagine) have been treating him as a special case and acting like he's not a full human being then compensating for their own dehumanizing of him by letting him get away with destructive behavior as if they are being nice to him. None of it is nice. Maybe I'm the only person who actually talked to him about what he's doing. It would have been easier to just move my foot and say nothing. I could also have just muttered something to the standing-up people I was talking to.

Ann: not to mention being seen as devoid of sexual drive/sexuality. That, to me, is the worst example of hung up, Puritian values in the US - that the handicapped don't have sexual selves. At my former a job a 45 year old Downs Syndrome man managed to get his first blow job - which he couldn't shut up about. The hysteria that ensued was something to behold. You'd think he cut a leg off!

At the other end, I've met people with severe cerebral palsy that handled it with impressive dignity and grace.

I had an experience with a guy in a motorized wheelchair six months ago. Drove out of a parking lot and was looking to merge onto busy main street, when WHAM, something hits the passenger side.

I look over and I can see the top of the head of some guy in a motorized wheel chair, he'd been zipping along the sidewalk at 15 MPH - going against traffic - and he couldn't stop in time, so he ran into my car.

I was going to apologize (even though I was in the right) but was met by a stream of profanity and abuse! So I just made a right, drove away down the street and made my usual U-turn.

And then what do I see? Its to the guy in the wheelchair continuing down the sidewalk of that busy street at 15 MPH!

First of all, an asshole is an asshole, putting them in wheelchairs doesn't make them saints.

Second, I'm sure lots of disabled people become bitter. Why wouldn't they? And having to put up with a lot of patronizing fake sympathy probably doesn't help.

OT: One of the nastiest people was a nun at the DMV. For some reason she kept backing into me while I waited in line and stepping on my feet. Why? I don't know. I finally had to tell her to "knock it off" or I'd retaliate, Nun or not. Then she stopped. She got up to the clerk, and was nasty and rude to him. Weird.

I got my pot card just for giggles, and I gotta say I hate the stuff. It's way too strong, you can't take more than two hits. I like the taste (memories of '67) but ya can't enjoy it that way. Makes me crazy and paranoid.

Kratom is hands down a better botanical drug. It's an energizer, painkiller, appetite suppressant, even a decongestant...but the FDA wants to schedule it.

It’s strange. In our house I am fine with the legalization of pot. I’d be even more comfortable if we could ensure that other people don’t have to pay for the possible repercussions from usage. I have never tried any sort of illegal drug, don’t use prescription pain pills (they make me hyper), and though I’ve been drunk have never consumed alcohol on a consistent basis. You’d think I would be the naysayer.

My husband does not support legalization. He experimented in college and drank with his buddies all through his twenties. Now he doesn’t drink at all not liking the way it makes him feel. He is obnoxiously fit. He is the poster child for being able to try something, not become addicted, and go on to a successful life. He is adamant in his opinion.

As someone who was a libertarian years ago, and still has many libertarian sympathies, this makes me sad. The "libertarians" were once a serious group with serious ideas, some right and some very wrong, but this scene is a sad mockery of that past.

I stopped smoking weed in my early 20s because it started to not make me feel well. I tried it again a few years ago when I was not working and not subject to random tests, and this stuff that they're smoking now is just nuts. One hit made me sorry I did. I have no idea how kids can smoke this stuff and even marginally function.

I have a friend who has a card who tells me that there are strains available that can provide the mellow that I want, not sure I believe that, but if they have a strain that mellows me out like a few beers do, I'd be up for that.

Marijuana was an "innocent" victim of the attack by the Chemical Titans who moved to destroy the Hemp industry as part of their preparation for the coming of plastic. The littering of the oceans' floor with millions of tons of non-degradable plastic is one of the lesser consequences of the banning of wholly biodegradable hemp which could be used in the construction of skyscrapers and eaten in a variety of ways. This is a very important theme in all of our lives that is only now beginning to be explored and made public. Of course pot can be abused, like bread, butter, milk and sex but banning it created a huge illegal industry that contributed to a coarsening of our public and private lives. I remember a Thanksgiving visit to a friend who moved to Ann Arbor to take a teaching position at the University. His wife, who knew I was a pot smoker, took me for a ride to visit some large corn fields outside the city. All the corn had been harvested but the fields were filled with rows of stars as far as the eye could see. Without a word she strolled me up to the edge of one field. She pulled one of the stalks aside and behind it was a row of marijuana plants. She said every row of corn masked a row of pot. She thought it was like that from Ohio to Nebraska.

I was tripped when I was 8 months pregnant by a blind man using a cane in a reckless way. I was walking on a wide but crowded sidewalk as he travelled towards me, and I gave him a wide berth. However, he made a sudden turn in front of me, sweeping the cane out in front first. I had no idea this was happening and the first thing I knew, I had fallen hard, straight on to my belly. He was FURIOUS at me, assuming that because he was blind that he could not be at fault. I don't doubt that others in the past had failed to give him appropriate consideration, but that wasn't the case here. I literally had no way to know that he was going to suddenly turn and sweep his cane between my feet. He never even asked who he had tripped and if they were injured, just kept screaming and swearing at me. I was stupid and went to work right afterwards, instead of heading straight to the hospital. I did go into early labor an hour later and spent the day at the hospital being monitored; fortunately I was allowed to go home that night. Our son was born a month later, healthy, but it still upsets me greatly to think of how close we came to a disaster.

Blogger jono39 said...“Marijuana was an "innocent" victim of the attack by the Chemical Titans who moved to destroy the Hemp industry as part of their preparation for the coming of plastic. The littering of the oceans' floor with millions of tons of non-degradable plastic is one of the lesser consequences of the banning of wholly biodegradable hemp which could be used in the construction of skyscrapers and eaten in a variety of ways.”

Nearly all plastic floats on water (especially seawater) because of density. I spent a lot of time scuba diving as a youth and I don’t ever recall seeing any sort of plastic littering lake and sea beds. Glass and metal, yes. The big advantage of hemp packaging is biodegradability.